Every sin should increase our trust, seeing it proves to us in the most convincing manner, that He is absolutely necessary. Weakness is ours, since it forces us to live by faith on One mighty to save. The drying up of earthly streams makes us cleave to Him who is all in all–prevails on us to find happiness in His fullness.
What a precious name, a strong tower, into which, if we run, we shall be safe! …Almighty Love arrests me, pulls me in; and then rewards me for coming. How much is there in those words, “are safe,”–to think we are safe from everything! No evil shall ever touch us, evil at the end, or evil on the way. All paved with love; “all things work together for good.”
One of His errands from heaven was to bind up the broken-hearted. He has an answer for every complaint you may ever be tempted to make. Do you say you have none now to follow, to walk with, to lean on? He will follow you, and invite you to come up from the wilderness, leaning on Him as your Beloved. Is it that you want one to be interested in all your concerns?
Cast all your cares upon Him for He careth for you. A protector? Let thy widows trust in Me. An adviser? Wonderful Counselor! Companion? I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you: I will never leave you, nor forsake you: I have not called you servants, but friends. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. One to weep with you? In all their affliction He was afflicted: Jesus wept. When you lie down–safe under the shadow of His wings, under the banner of His love. When you awake–still about your path and about your bed. It is worth being afflicted to become intimately acquainted, and to learn to make use of, the Chief of ten thousand–the Altogether Lovely–the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother–the Friend of sinners.
May you daily more and more see that there is enough in Jesus to meet all your wants…There are depths in Jesus’ love your eye has never yet seen, your ear has never yet heard, your heart never even conceived of; but God sees it! In short, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, and make you abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
We may feel a weight of sin pointing to the very heavens, but there is a heap of mercy reaching into the heavens, “built up for ever,” that neither past sin shall condemn, for His mercy is from everlasting; neither shall future, because His mercy is to everlasting; they have all been laid on Him–carried off into the land of forgetfulness, never to be laid on us again, until east meets with west.
Blessed to have a waste heart–to feel it a wilderness, a desert fitted to receive and rejoice in such promises as this: “The Lord shall comfort thee; He shall comfort all thy waste places. He will make thy wilderness like Eden–thy desert as the garden of the Lord.” “Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”
Blessed be God! He loves not according to our desert, but according to our necessity. Blessed by God! it is not written, His blood can cleanse from all the evil that we see, but what He sees.
So foolish and ignorant are we, even as beasts before Him–yet let us encourage ourselves in the Lord our God; encourage ourselves in His character; encourage ourselves in His compassion; He will not shut up His tender mercies in anger, but will shut up anger in His tender mercies; for His compassions fail not. Let us say of them, This is my hiding place; here will I nestle from sins, temptation, falls, and ingratitudes. Feeling His tenderness to be that of a jealous God, we are too apt to go to Him, as a tender, jealous friend, keeping back what is likely to grieve Him. But no! Our Jesus is not like an earthly friend, even in this; there is no loosening His love by suspicion. He knows all our baseness, yet loves unto the end! Therefore let us go and tell Him all; even those feelings which we would hide from ourselves, let us drag out before Him, and pour out our complaints of ourselves, into the bosom of our Master.
I have been thinking, my dear sister, time is so short, it would be better could we throw all our powers into straining every nerve for His glory, in the situation in which He has placed us, instead of losing time in doubting whether we are in the right situation. These doubts prevent the gratitude He expects; for there is a right side in every thing; there must be, because it is His will that “in every thing we should give thanks.”
It is a great thing really to trust Him through thick and thin; to believe our sorrow is our joy, our misery our happiness. He deprives us of provision for earthly affection, that these affections, going in search of their object, may take a grand grasp of Him, the archetype, the fountain of every excellency; all love in comparison is but the rivulet to the ocean, one limited to the nutshell of a human heart; the other immense, as the infinite mind of Jehovah.
It seems to me the nature of love is two-fold. First, it is given to excuse, instead of accuse. Second, it is equally jealous in covering as well as detecting evil–covering it from others–detecting it to the individual concerned. Christian love, where God’s glory is the simple motive, no doubt, would lead us to consider others, both in feeling ourselves bound to give thanks, and to glory in what God has done for them, and also in carrying the blind, maimed, halt, and infirm, in the arms of faith, to place them at the feet of Jesus.
I particularly fail in, as no doubt you have observed–speaking severely of God’s children; forgetting that he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of His eye; that words aimed at them pierce Him; that all is laid to the charge of that cause for which we profess to live, and to be willing to die. I think we should be very sure of an action, before we speak of it, which we do not consider commendable, and not then unless for good.
What a blessing we are not left to ourselves, that when we drag the skein of our life into the most desperate tangles, Mercy will sit down patiently to unravel…that we may learn to leave our righteousness behind, and come to Jesus in our sins, instead of leaving our sins behind, to come in our righteousness.